The current bridge is the most recent in a number of crossings at this location dating to the laying out of the Great Country Road in the early 18th century. These were likely a succession of timber stringer bridges until the erection of an iron deck girder bridge built in the 1880s. An incident indelibly associated with this crossing was the visit to Chepachet of a traveling exhibition in 1826. A tent was erected at the village fairgrounds (now the area behind Glocester Town Hall) for the showing of a "learned elephant?" At the close of the show, when the elephant's handler and assistants were beginning their westward trek on foot to the next performance, a Chepachet resident hiding in the grist mill (formerly located at the northwest comer of the bridge) shot and killed the elephant. The bridge has taken on the unofficial name of Elephant Bridge since that event. In observation of the 150th anniversary of the incident in May 1976, a parade was held led by an elephant from Southwick's Wild Animal Farm (Mendon, MA). A bronze plaque commemorating the event was mounted on the west pipe railing close to the location of the shooting.

The flow and fall of the Chepachet River as well as the topography at this point causes periodic flooding. One such flood in February 1867 destroyed upriver dams at Keech Pond and Smith and Sayles Reservoir. A massive wall of water and debris caused extensive destruction along the river, washing out the dam at Factory Pond immediately upstream of Chepachet Village. This surge of water transformed the topography of the area, carving out the ravine that now defines the area immediately upstream of the bridge and destroying the timber bridge. Although current research has not located town records confirming the purchase and construction of a new bridge after the freshet, there is photographic evidence of a two-span timber stringer bridge with a rubble center pier and abutments likely dating to this time. This stringer bridge and perhaps a similar successor likely served for about twenty years until its replacement by a single-span, deck plate girder bridge between 1887 and 1900. This bridge was built by the Groton Bridge and Manufacturing Company and provided a 34' clear span, a 19'-wide roadway, bracketed sidewalks and a decorative wrought iron railing." The Groton Iron Bridge Company (New York) was formed in 1877, reorganized as the Groton Bridge and Manufacturing Company in 1887 and, along with a number of regional metal bridge-fabricators, was absorbed into the American Bridge Company in 1900.

The Putnam Pike was one of the earliest roads incorporated into the state road system after the creation of the RI State Board of Public Roads (SBPR) in 1902. For the first decade of its existence, the SBPR repaired, improved, and constructed the roads ofthe emergent State road system, but maintained that the upkeep and repair of bridges on these roads was the responsibility of the towns where they were located. This separation was contested successfully late in the first decade of the 20th century, resulting in the formation of the SBPR Bridge Department in 1912. This department, under the direction of Clarence Hussey, first Chief Bridge Engineer, carried out an inspection of the 156 bridges on the state road system at the time. By 1913 the Bridge Department had inspected and photographed the metal plate girder bridge at Chepachet, carrying out planking repairs two years later. 8 Hussey described the general problems presented by heavier loading on light metal and wooden bridges in 1920:

This brings us face to face with a condition that has developed rapidly within the last few years, and that is the inability of old light steel and wooden bridges to support modem truck loads. These bridges are in large part of old design and in almost every instance they were built hurriedly after the floods of 1886. In fact, every steel bridge upon our State highway system, with scarcely an exception, was built between the years 1886 and 1889.

He described the specific conditions of the Chepachet Bridge in 1921:

The conditions at this site are unusual in respect to the height of the roadway above the river. According to reports, previous structures at this site have been destroyed by heavy floods . The watershed at this bridge is only 13 square miles , but the run-off ratio is very high. The old bridge was a steel deck girder of very light construction with bracketed sidewalks, 34 feet in span and 30 feet wide [including sidewalks]. The masonry abutments were about 20 feet high and retaining walls extended for some distance either side of the bridge. One ofthese walls had partially failed. Leakage from a sluiceway near the bridge had penetrated the fill behind the walls and subjected them to an excessive pressure."

To address this pressing need for new state road bridges, Hussey had developed a set of reinforced concrete bridge designs that could be adapted to the particular circumstances of topography,

The Chepachet Bridge is a single-span, reinforced concrete, barrel arch bridge built as a replacement for a late 19th-century single-span metal deck plate girder bridge supported by granite ashlar abutments. This structure measures 134' in length (including approach walls) and an overall width of 60' (as widened in 1937). The original 1920 bridge had an overall width of 40'. The span is 20' in length with a clearance of 20' at normal water levels. The roadway is 42' in width and bound by reinforced concrete curbs. Sidewalks, currently blocked from pedestrian use, are 7'-wide. Coursed granite ashlar masonry facing over concrete was obtained from the abutments of the earlier bridge. The southwest wingwall is integral with a stone-faced concrete outflow structure. The southeast wingwall is attached to the foundation of the 1814 Chepachet Manufacturing Company picker house (aka the Stone Mill).

Current 36"-high, four-bar pipe railings date to a 1937 widening project carried out by the DPW as part of general improvements to the Putnam Pike in this area. The sidewalks of the original 1920 bridge were carried over the arch drum. As improved in the 1937 widening project, reinforced concrete cantilevered brackets attached to the spandrel walls support 7'-wide sidewalks. This allowed the DPW to incorporate some of the former sidewalk space into the new 42'-wide roadway. Two small, ceramic (blue letters on white field) original identification plaques survive. At the northwest comer of the bridge is a plaque reading 100; at the southwest comer is a plaque reading Rhode Island. The plaques for the other two comers are missing.